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Entire Wheat Bread

A yeast bread made with whole wheat flour, white flour, molasses, shortening, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Entire Wheat Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine shortening, molasses, and salt.

  2. Pour in boiling water and scalded milk; let cool to lukewarm.

  3. Dissolve the yeast cake in lukewarm water and add to the mixture.

  4. Stir in white flour and enough entire wheat flour to form a kneadable dough.

  5. Knead the dough, then let it rise until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into loaves and let rise again.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 40 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Yeast cake
Ferments the dough so it rises and becomes light and airy.
White flour
Adds gluten-forming protein that gives the dough structure and a softer crumb.
Entire wheat flour
Forms the bulk of the dough and adds a heartier texture and nutty flavor.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and flavor, and helps the crust brown during baking.
Milk
Adds tenderness, richness, and browning from milk sugars and proteins.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool to lukewarm before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid, so the boiling water and scalded milk must cool to lukewarm before the yeast is dissolved in and added.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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